Leadership

Rick Boucher

Former Congressman Rick Boucher (D-Virginia) served for 28 years in the United States House of Representatives representing Virginia’s Ninth Congressional District. Prior to his service in Congress, he was a member of the Virginia State Senate for seven years.

During his Congressional tenure he served on the House Energy and Commerce and Judiciary Committees and chaired the subcommittees on Communications, Technology and the Internet; and Energy and Air Quality. He carved out a role as a trusted bipartisan leader on telecommunications, energy and environmental issues.

He was a leading participant in every major telecommunications policy debate over the past 25 years. A subcommittee that he chaired oversaw the commercialization of the Internet and its transition from a government-owned R&D project, and he authored the 1992 law that permitted the first commercial use of the Internet. He was one of two co-founders of the Congressional Internet Caucus, and served as co-chairman of the 170 member group for 15 years. His proposals to promote competition among telecommunications service providers across industry lines were at the core of the Communications Act of 1996. He authored the first Satellite Home Viewer Act and was the author of its most recent renewal, known as STELA, which contains his provision that is bringing satellite delivered local television signals to all 210 local television markets nationwide.

Mr. Boucher is a partner in the Washington, DC office of Sidley Austin and head of the firm’s government strategies practice group. Congressman Boucher is a graduate of Roanoke College and the University of Virginia School of Law. Prior to his election to Congress, he practiced law in New York and in Virginia. He is married to the former Amy Hauslohner, and they reside in Abingdon, Virginia.

Recent Contributions from Rick Boucher

Congress needs to pass a statute that protects the open internet and encourages innovation and investment — and end a protracted ping-pong match between Title I and Title II status for internet regulation.

5G’s ability to handle massive amounts of data flowing from multiple points allows healthcare professionals to monitor patients and identify those at risk sooner and with greater accuracy than ever before.

Telemedicine allows healthcare professionals to evaluate, diagnose, and treat patients in remote locations using communications technology. And the advances in telemedicine will only grow as we move into a 5G world, benefitting healthcare around the globe and helping to close the urban-rural divide.

California Governor Jerry Brown signed into law SB 822 that adopts a state-level net neutrality requirement for broadband providers operating in California. However well-intentioned this effort may be, it is deeply legally flawed. It also contains substantive provisions that would serve as a major barrier to broadband investment.

The majority of today’s teachers routinely make homework assignments with the expectation that students will go online to complete the work. But students don’t have equal access to high-speed broadband. One straightforward way increase access to high-speed broadband is a spectrum auction to repurpose a currently-underutilized spectrum band and open up more wireless capacity for everyone, including for educational use.

The statutory designation of broadband as a Title I information service is one key to putting the net neutrality debate to rest, and it’s also essential to creating a regulatory climate appropriate for broadband investment in rural areas.

A new survey shows just how fast the market for broadband is changing. Consumers no longer see mobile and fixed internet access alternatives as fundamentally different but use different types of broadband access in similar ways. In other words, mobile and fixed broadband are now functional substitutes.

The door is open once again to large-scale broadband investment, but some in Congress are now urging a return of the heavy-handed regulatory treatment imposed on broadband in 2015. That would be a major mistake for the country at large and particularly punishing for broadband investment in our rural regions.

Former Congressman Rick Boucher discusses the need for everyone in the internet system to rally around adopting in a statute the core principles of an open internet and strong, uniform privacy protections that apply equally to everyone at every point in the internet continuum.

Former Congressman Rick Boucher argues that the practical effect of the privacy rules proposed by former FCC Chair Tom Wheeler would do little to protect Americans on basic privacy issues and be harmful to the advertising business model of internet edge providers.